Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Steampunk
Yes, in the old days, with old radios and TVs, there was a metal chassis, housing the electronics. Then that chassis was inside the wooden case. Also a few had asbestos liners. About 20 years ago, I was corresponding with UL, about a several different safety standards, applicable to consumer electronics. UL replied that any could be used, and that they were just chronological refinements of the prior standard. The older ones would eventually be phased out. The point being, that what was considered safe for an old tube radio, won't pass by today's standard. I'm also a second hand witness to a piece of relatively modern electronics (90's vintage stereo) catching fire, and burning down the house, of one of my friend's girlfriend. It had a plastic case. A short is a rare occurrence, but it does happen, and there can be enough energy to ignite stuff. Safety features, such as fuses, and decent connectors, can greatly reduce the probability, but nothing in this world is absolute. I also have been a first hand witness to power cords igniting after a short occurred. Fortunately, they, in turn, did not ignite anything else. A wallcube, if shorted, will heat up, but don't usually pass enough power to cause ignition. They usually, just die quietly, by opening up. On Sunday, January 26, 2014 5:50:37 PM UTC-8, charles wrote: On 14-01-26 03:47 PM, Tidak Ada wrote: Old radio and TV cabinets where also made of wood, but I never heard they did frequently (if ever) burst in fire... And Mains power came inside directly from the wall pug. It is all in the design. Most wood cabinet radios have a metal chassis inside which would trap flames. It was not unusual to have a piece of Asbestos Paper under the chassis (try doing that these days!) Fuses and fusible links can take the risk way down. Consumer units with power transformers often have the fusible link inside the transformer - over draw current and the transformer pops open from a link buried somewhere in the primary winding. -- Charles MacDonald Stittsville Ontario cm...@zeusprune.ca javascript: Just Beyond the Fringe http://Charles.MacDonald.org/tubes No Microsoft Products were used in sending this e-mail. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups neonixie-l group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/6c8d40b2-61c6-4b06-a446-bdd17b025ccb%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: [neonixie-l] Re: Steampunk
Old radio and TV cabinets where also made of wood, but I never heard they did frequently (if ever) burst in fire... And Mains power came inside directly from the wall pug. eric _ From: neonixie-l@googlegroups.com [mailto:neonixie-l@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of threeneurons Sent: zondag 26 januari 2014 19:34 To: neonixie-l@googlegroups.com Subject: [neonixie-l] Re: Steampunk Not the prettiest clock I've seen. A lot of member's, here, have done a lot better. And many of those clocks could be considered steampunk too, style-wise. He's got some brass ones, submitting it to Kickstarter. If there's a viewer comment section, maybe we should add a link to better looking nixie clocks. Nothing wrong with wood. As long as the maximum amount of power that can come into the case (if dead shorted), is not enough to ignite any flammable parts. Usually, old style wallcubes can't deliver that kind of power. Straight 120VAC (or 220VAC) coming in, can easily deliver enough juice. That's why its been pretty standard to have low voltage entering the case, and boosting it with a switcher, to run the nixies. One of my old job functions was to ensure, the companies products, was compliant to FCC and UL standards. If it was powered from a wallcube, it was easy. Just buy UL approved wallcubes, and I was done. At least for the UL safety part. On Friday, January 24, 2014 9:56:32 PM UTC-8, Nixcited delighted wrote: My feelings are best left unspoken, https://www.kickstarter.com/ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1692415722/steampunk-nixie-clock projects/1692415722/steampunk-nixie-clock John S -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups neonixie-l group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/f851457c-7cdf-4221-ae10-f44f78d c8daa%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups neonixie-l group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/!%26!AAAYAPDddShx705MuX20yCpp0vvCgAAAEHVUlOsvhIpDhjIpD6J/TlABAA%3D%3D%40zeelandnet.nl. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Steampunk
On 14-01-26 03:47 PM, Tidak Ada wrote: Old radio and TV cabinets where also made of wood, but I never heard they did frequently (if ever) burst in fire... And Mains power came inside directly from the wall pug. It is all in the design. Most wood cabinet radios have a metal chassis inside which would trap flames. It was not unusual to have a piece of Asbestos Paper under the chassis (try doing that these days!) Fuses and fusible links can take the risk way down. Consumer units with power transformers often have the fusible link inside the transformer - over draw current and the transformer pops open from a link buried somewhere in the primary winding. -- Charles MacDonald Stittsville Ontario cm...@zeusprune.ca Just Beyond the Fringe http://Charles.MacDonald.org/tubes No Microsoft Products were used in sending this e-mail. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups neonixie-l group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/52E5BB6D.2070005%40zeusprune.ca. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: [neonixie-l] Re: Steampunk Nixie Watch battery life
Hi Jeff, How is everything these days? I got so many people asking for a nixie watch that it really is a pity I have so little time to actually make them! I still like the idea of a 4 tube watch as well, but that really is a distant future project. You mentioned you bought 6,000 IN17 tubes some time ago. If you're not using them for any project, would you be interested in selling those to me (or a part of it)? What's your opinion about David's new watch? It doesn't look too bad but it is very much like one of those early LED watches. Will be really interesting to see how popular they will be and what kind of price tag they come with. Best regards, Michel From: neonixie-l@googlegroups.com [mailto:neonixie-l@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Jeff Thomas Sent: Monday, 23 July 2012 4:35 AM To: neonixie-l@googlegroups.com Subject: [neonixie-l] Re: Steampunk Nixie Watch battery life Hi Michel, that was great work on your battery life analysis! That's a real testament of your efforts in designing for efficiency. So what's this about the Australian Nixie Watch? is it something worn down under ;) Kidding aside, Congratulations on your work. Regards, Jeff On Sunday, July 15, 2012 3:53:17 AM UTC-7, Michel wrote: Over the past few weeks I did some extensive tests for battery life of my Nixie Watch. When I started with the design, I took David's numbers as a reference. An average of 50 readings per day at 1mA tube current (about 185mA battery current) results in 4 to 6 months battery life. Say 5 months, that would be 7,500 readings for 1 battery. I wanted my battery to last for 1 year, so it needed to be able to last for say 20,000 readings. I started off with making the HV circuit as efficient as possible which resulted in the fact that I could drive the tubes with 1mA at around 95mA battery current. I could use this advantage to go from say 7,500 readings to 15,000 readings (or 5 months to 10 months). However, I decided to increase the tube brightness to go from 1mA to 2mA so that the tubes would be better to read when you're outside. This meant that to increase battery life, I had to be able to adjust the tube brightness according to the amount of ambient light, which would also make it much more convenient to read the time when it's dark. The high efficiency of the total circuit resulted in a minimum of 6mA battery current when reading the tubes at night and around 185 - 200mA in (very) bright daylight. To test battery life, I implemented a feature that the watch can automatically display the time with intervals of 5 seconds. This comes down to around 600 readings per hour. I also implemented a 16 bit counter that would keep track on how many time readings had been triggered. I had estimated that the number could be anywhere between 20,000 and 50,000 so that's why I choose 16 bits. To estimate battery life, and check how the watch would behave when it would run out of juice, I then installed a new battery and set the watch to display the time 600 times per hour and 24 hours per day. Wherever I went, I was wearing the watch and I only took it off at night. Now the interesting part. After about 4.5 days, my 16 bit counter overflowed, passing the maximum of 65,535 readings. And it didn't just do that once, no, several days later it overflowed again, clocking a total of 131,000 readings! But, it didn't stop just there because the battery still had enough juice to go on for another 100,000 readings. Then, the display faded and in the end at 270,000 readings the battery was dead!! Now, that's what I call an increadible result! Sure the tubes are not at their brightest, and the low current (6mA) during the night would compensate for the higher current the watch would use during the daytime. Then I did a second test, basically the same but now with the tubes set to a constant 100% brightness, 600 times per hour. Not surprisingly, the battery could not supply the required power anymore after about 14,000 readings. I built a feature into the software that monitors the battery performance and automatically reduces the tube brightness to a minimum when the battery is nearly flat. This way, the time will still display at low tube brightness (which is 25% of maximum brightness) and you can change the battery before it is completely flat. This also means that if we would set the watch to a constant 50% brightness (1mA tube current), the battery will last for about 25,000 readings, enough for 1 year. http://xiac.com/Images/Steampunk_Nixie_Watch.JPG Michel http://facebook.com/nixiewatch -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups neonixie-l group. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit
RE: [neonixie-l] Re: Steampunk Nixie Watch battery life
Obviously, the previous message (which has been deleted from the neonixie group) was a private message that should never have been posted to the neonixie group. The information contained therein is confidential information intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above it. If the reader of that message is not the intended recipient, the reader is hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited and must delete/trash the original message from your system. Thank you for your cooperation. Michel -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups neonixie-l group. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Steampunk Nixie Watch battery life
Ha, down under that is a funny thought, would be nice for a model to wear on the catwalk :-) A bit difficult to check the time by herself though. Can you imagine Lara Stone asking you to check the time for her haha ;-) No, it's not about where you wear it but how it looks like. Oh right, so it looks like a kangaroo, or an Emu? I thought it would have bat nixies in it. Upside down digits. John S -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups neonixie-l group. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
